The Republican who parlayed Orthodox anti-Obama sentiment into a House victory, now has his eyes on the Senate.

03/12/2012 - 20:00

Stewart Ain

Staff Writer

The decision of Rep. Bob Turner (R-Queens) to jump into the race against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) Tuesday caught many political observers by surprise and suddenly made Gillibrand’s quest for re-election anything but a cakewalk, according to analysts.

“It was like throwing a grenade into the race,” said one Republican insider. “It really shakes everything up.”

The Celebrate Israel Parade on Fifth Avenue got off to a rousing start Sunday in the Grand Ballroom of the Roosevelt Hotel where a score of politicians mounted the podium to outdo each other in praise of the Jewish homeland.

It's become a tradition for politicos leading the parade to come first to the annual legislative breakfast of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, now known as Met Council .

Under the direction of board chair Merryl H. Tisch, 16 individuals received leadership awards for their support of the council's efforts to alleviate poverty in New York.

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- The United States will not participate in Durban III, this September, the State Department said.

In a letter to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Joseph E. Macmanus, acting assistant secretary for legislative affairs, confirmed the United States would not attend the conference, which in its previous iterations has been a forum for anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment.

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- The U.S. Senate unanimously approved a resolution calling on the United Nations to rescind the Goldstone report.

Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and James Risch (R-Idaho) initiated the resolution last week after Richard Goldstone, a South African judge, retracted a key conclusion of the U.N. report he helped author on the 2009 Gaza war -- that Israel had targeted civilians as a policy.

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Legislation calling on the United Nations to rescind the Goldstone report is circulating in both houses of Congress.

A Senate resolution, introduced April 8 by Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and James Risch (R-Idaho), calls on the U.N. Human Rights Council to "reflect the author’s repudiation of the Goldstone report’s central findings, rescind the report, and reconsider further Council actions with respect to the report’s findings."

A letter circulating in the Senate calls on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to detail steps the U.S. is taking to end Palestinian incitement against Israeli civilians. The letter is in response to Friday’s stabbing massacre of five members of a Jeiwsh family in the West Bank settlement of Itamar.

Citing the movement of two Iranian warships toward the Suez Canal and a potential confrontation with Israel, a bipartisan group of members of Congress on Wednesday called for tougher sanctions against Tehran to thwart its nuclear ambitions.

"If we can bring greater transparency to any investment being made in Iran, we can defund nuclear development in one of the world’s most hostile nations,” said New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, in a conference call with reporters. “America can not and will not tolerate a nuclear Iran.”

The uncertain future of Israel’s powerful neighbor dominated the speeches at Sunday’s annual congressional breakfast sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council, held less than 48 hours after the demise of Hosni Mubarak’s three-decade reign over Egypt.